'The editorial duo comprised of the OG of hip hop studies, Murray Forman, and one of the pioneers in hip hop archiving, Mark V. Campbell, provides a comprehensive volume of essays dedicated to the understanding of the intricacies and challenges of archiving... The authors bring their own flavour while remixing the traditional archival studies by incorporating hip hop’s concepts of representing, digging, building and sampling. They also challenge cultural institutions and their assumed neutrality and objectivity by shedding light on gatekeeping tactics and the existing power relations and ideologies. Essays of this volume challenge professional archives that focus on elites while ignoring the contributions of popular culture in general and underrepresented groups and their culture in particular.

Authors of this volume make a strong case for the topics of archivization, museumification, and the role of private collections, to be introduced as a stable part of popular music studies and curricula in general, and hip hop in particular, in hopes of inspiring the next generation of professional archivists and curators.'

'Since the turn of the millennium, there has been an explosion of archival practice within and regarding hip-hop culture. Hip-Hop Archives both documents a multiplicity of these efforts (primarily from the perspective of the archivists themselves) and explores the theoretical and ethical contexts and implications of such work.

Hip-Hop Archives serves as a vital document of early twenty-first century attempts to contend with the archive of late twentieth century hip-hop culture. Beyond this, it sets out a multitude of productive provocations to researchers who would continue such practices, and its varied methodological insights in particular merit serious consideration.'

'The variety of voices in Hip-Hop Archives is impressive. The mix of international contexts, especially incorporating the voices of scenes that developed under oppressive regimes, are eye-opening for the central metaphor of knowledge production. Campbell and Forman truly get at the egalitarian and universal form of hip-hop, while acknowledging both African American roots and the varying reasons some founders are left out, closing with beautiful, insightful, and passionate interviews.'

'This innovative and accessible collection explores hip-hop practices that attest to its longevity, impact and value. Of course, even with the global dissemination, adoption and adaptation of hip-hop, this is also about the politics, community and culture of Black people as the fount of this vital practice and knowledge, underlining the necessity of recording and archiving this history. Many contributors speak from empirical experience and their role in establishing the culture and its preservation attests to book’s authority and authenticity.'

'Dozens of books have been published on the history of hip-hop, preserving timelines and the experiences of many artists and audiences, building narratives, and capturing the culture as it developed. Hip-Hop Archives concerns the next step: a desire to systematically preserve as much cultural heritage as possible, even in challenging formats such as graffiti. Institutions, DIY efforts and other organizations are undertaking this work, using traditional and non-traditional methods and a decolonized framework. The purpose of this book is to fill gaps in the literature on archiving hip-hop’s material and nonmaterial culture before they are lost, destroyed, or sold to the highest bidder. 

Hip-Hop Archives is completely unique in its approach as a collection of essays written by academics and artists, all with a background in hip-hop culture. The topics covered range from collecting, archiving and overcoming format problems to archiving hip-hop culture in communist and post-communist countries. It also contains three interviews with archivists and a dozen illustrations. Recommended.'

Mark V. Campbell is a DJ, scholar and curator. He is co-founder of the Bigger than Hip Hop radio show (1997-2015) and founder at Northside Hip Hop Archive. Mark is an assistant professor of music and culture at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media.

Murray Forman is among the first generation of hip-hop studies scholars, his academic research having directly
engaged various facets of hip-hop culture since the early 1990s. His books include The ‘Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (2002) and (with co-editor Mark Anthony Neal) That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (1st edition 2004; 2nd edition, 2012) as well as One Night on TV is Worth Weeks at the Paramount: Popular Music on Early Television (2012). An inaugural Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at the Hip Hop Archive & Research Institute, Harvard University (2014-2015), he is professor of media and screen studies at Northeastern University.

List of Figures vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: “An Archival State of Mind” xiii

Mark V. Campbell

SECTION 1: DOING THE KNOWLEDGE 1

1. The Hip Hop Archive and the High School Student: Symbiotic Knowledge Disruption 3

Kulsoom Anwer Shaikh

2. Hip Hop as a Practical and Methodological Issue: Libraries in Russia 19

Sergey Ivanov

3. Hip Hop Dance and the Circulation of Breaking Footage 41

Mary Fogarty and Jason “J-Sun” Noer

4. The Black History 101 Mobile Museum and the Michigan Hip-Hop Archive 57

Khalid El-Hakim

SECTION 2: CHALLENGING ARCHIVAL FORMS 77

5. As We Walk through the Archived Files of All Styles: Archival Practices and Cultural Memory on Battle Rap Forums 79

Sean Robertson-Palmer

6. The Responsibilities and Challenges of Community-Engaged Archives: Lessons from Building the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive 96

Pacey Foster

7. The Ballad of “Grandmaster PH”: Contesting Narratives and Lost Archives in Philippine Hip-Hop 114

James Gabrillo

8. Painting, Image, and Cultural Heritage: The Graffiti Mural Fascinate as Visual Ecology 129

Jacob Kimvall

9. Oral History and the Accidental Archive 154

Giuseppe “u.net” Pipitone

SECTION 3: BEYOND THE NATION 167

10. Traces of Solidarity and Breakdown: Domestic Collection in Post-Yugoslav Hip Hop Fanzines and Mixtapes 169

Owen Kohl and Dragana Cvetanović

11. Living Archives: Producing Knowledge about Hip-Hop Culture in East Germany 196

Leonard Schmieding

12. Rap Cubano in the Archive: The Immaterial Paradox 221

Pablo D. Herrera Veitia

SECTION 4: INSTITUTIONAL ALIGNMENTS: INTERVIEWS AND REFLECTIONS 249

13. Nwaka Onwusa (Vice President and Chief Curator, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) 251

14. Ben Ortiz (Assistant Curator, Cornell Hip Hop Collection) 268

15. Martha Diaz (Chief Curator/Archivist, Hip Hop Education Center and Associate Curator/Archivist, Universal Hip Hop Museum) 281

Afterword 297

Murray Forman

Notes on Contributors 309

Index 317